2050 - Are we still here?
Predicting the future in 1992 when I began this work was relatively easy. There was ample science to tell us that if urgent steps to reduce the use of fossil fuels were not immediately implemented a rapidly warming world of heatwaves, storms and wildfires would threaten our security. We now know those predictions were correct because they’ve all come about by 2026 with the prospect of being worse by 2030.
They were easy predictions to make because of the science, but also because a threat to security is not the same as a threat to the very existence of the global order and civilisation we take for granted.
Is the end really nigh?
Is it nigh for all of us, or just those lacking the wealth to adapt or having the misfortune to be living in the wrong location at the wrong time?
And if it is nigh, will it be brought about by AI before the climate brings it about?
The problem with doom-saying is that it doesn't motivate action whilst people have been doom saying for centuries and they have usually been wrong.
But not always. Civilisations have collapsed. What is different this time is that it is the whole of humanity and for that, there is no precedent.
Constant change, some of which will be frightening, is going to be normal. It is unhelpful to keep saying "another record is broken"
We must ensure Gen Z is the generation that is working working towards a new, more stable world for their own children.
What should we tell the children?
There are two immediate answers to this question. That they are doomed is not one of them:
1. Values are reasons for action. We are where we are because of the values of the generations before you.
2. The values you hold will determine whether things get rapidly worse or begin slowly to improve.
As a researcher I am confident that we have a serious problem with values. As an educator, I know that values and politics are closely intertwined but that my teaching should be apolitical.
My own actions and any interactions I have with young people are unavoidably going to occur within an environment where the pure science of net zero has been contaminated by politics, and politics are driven by values.
The least we can do is to equip young people to identify and reflect upon their own values.
If we are successful, we will have challenged them in a way no previous generation has been challenged.
"To value something means to prefer it, to invest energy in it and to work for it." (Wright, D. 1971). Wright identified two types of value: operative and expressed. We can identify when a person's values are operative by observing their behaviour. The same applies to whole societies and nations. It should be abundantly clear that unless the natural world is valued operatively by entire societies and nations immediately, successive catastrophic tipping points will be passed during the lifetimes of children alive today. At present the dominant mode of valuation is at best expressed or at worst negative. The wellbeing and quite possibly even survival of Gen Alpha depends on Gen Z embracing a fundamentally different set of values to the Millennials for whom being pro-environment amounted to little more than a lifestyle choice.
There is one way and one way only to operationalise the values of whole societies and nations.
Currently we are not doing at all well